Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday provided more insight into why he skipped the first Republican presidential debate last week in Milwaukee.
The former commander-in-chief had previously said he wouldn’t attend the debate, which featured other eight GOP candidates, in part, because of a pledge the Republican National Committee (RNC) forced candidates to sign. That pledge, which President Trump had previously criticized, asked the candidates to support the ultimate winner of the primary.
“My Poll numbers are UP since the very boring, record setting low (ratings!), Debate. Leading by BIG numbers. I made the right decision, and broke all records with the Tucker Carlson Interview!” President Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Tuesday.
He was referring to a video interview between him and the former Fox News host, where they discussed a range of topics. That video has generated nearly 300 million impressions on X, the Elon Musk-owned social media platform previously known as Twitter, although it’s not clear how many people watched the entire clip, or at least even part of it.
His campaign said over the weekend that some $7.1 million was donated after President Trump’s mugshot in a Fulton County, Georgia, election case was released online. The former president used the mugshot to make his first post on X in more than two years.
Several polls, however, have shown that President Trump’s support has dropped slightly since the Aug. 24 debate. For example, an Emerson College poll that was conducted right after the debate showed that his support dropped 6 percentage points, from 56 percent to 50 percent. Also, that poll showed that support for former Vice President Mike Pence and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley both increased by a few percentage points.
“While Trump saw a slight dip in support, the question from this poll is whether this is a blip for Trump or if the other Republican candidates will be able to rally enough support to be competitive for the caucus and primary season,” Spencer Kimball, the director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement.
“The Debate on FoxNews had a hard time with the proverbial RATINGS. It was one of the lowest rated EVER, if not THE LOWEST. It showed that many of those participating are ’second tier' and merely ‘pretenders to the throne,’” he wrote on Truth Social last week.
While the first debate generated 13 million viewers, according to Fox News and Nielsen, that’s still considerably lower than the first GOP presidential debate in 2015 as then-candidate Trump was mounting his first White House campaign. However, Fox was able to capture more viewers than any cable news show or broadcast that evening, and it was the best-performing non-sports program of the year, the company said.
“Some of the answers were sooo bad, with delivery even worse. The numbers were less than half what I had in 2016, not a good way to start the fight against Crooked Joe Biden, and his Lunatic Thugs. We will not let this happen. MAGA!” President Trump wrote.
The former president appeared to only praise businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who polls show is close to both Mrs. Haley and Mr. DeSantis, and declared him the winner of the GOP debate.
The second 2024 Republican presidential primary debate will be held on Sept. 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute in Simi Valley, California, and will air on Fox Business. It’s not clear if President Trump will attend, but he has publicly indicated he won’t go to any GOP debates, citing his overwhelming support in the polls.
